July 28th, 2016 - The IT, software and telecom industry research specialist, The
Business Advantage Group this week announced more details, from its
Worldwide CAD Trends 2016 Survey, specific to Concurrent Engineering. The survey results are based on responses from CAD users, Designers, Engineers, Professionals including managers and senior executives.

Chris Turner, CEO of Business Advantage Group commented, “Concurrent Engineering through CAD collaboration, defined as multiple users working on a single model in real time, continues to be an area of interest in today’s market with relatively low current usage implying plenty of opportunity for the growth that survey respondents predict.”

For Concurrent Engineering the growth predicted in the 2015 report did not materialize – usage has remained flat (19%-18%) through 2015. Users continue to rate its Importance highly – it is the 6th most important CAD trend from the survey. Like PLM, Concurrent Engineering is a trailing trend - high importance coupled with relatively low usage. However users continue to predict growth – 33% this year (from 18% to 24% usage) and 72% within 5 years (from 18% to 31%).

Awareness of Concurrent Engineering is 52% in large companies, 45% in medium sized companies and 39% in small companies. Similarly, Usage is higher in large companies (28%) than in medium sized companies (17%) or small companies (9%) and long term future predicted usage is also higher in the larger companies. Usage is highest in North America (21%) compared to EMEA (16%) or APAC (14%). The leading reason given for not using Concurrent Engineering was incompatibility with existing systems which is obviously a prerequisite for multiple users working on a single model real-time.

There is further indication in the survey of greater growth potential - a separate but related survey question asked what collaboration, data and information management tools respondent’s use? The top 10 leading software tools by market share (current usage for these purposes) are listed below. The highest market share for a single software solution is just 12% and there is no clear market leader although from a vendor point of view Autodesk leads with 5 of the top 10 software solutions!

Design Review 12% (mainly in AEC at 17%, 17% of Autodesk users also use Design Review)

Vault 11% (16% of Autodesk users also use Vault)

Navisworks 11% (mainly in AEC at 21%, 15% of Autodesk users also use Navisworks)

Windchill 8% (mainly in manufacturing at 12%, 42% of PTC CAD users also use Windchill)

A360 8% (mainly in AEC at 12%, 11% of Autodesk users also use A360)

Teamcenter 7% (mainly in manufacturing at 14%, 42% of Siemens CAD users also use Teamcenter)

ProjectWise 4% (mainly in AEC at 7%, 38% of Bentley users also use ProjectWise)

Buzzsaw 5% (mainly in AEC at 11%, 7% of Autodesk and 6% of PTC users also use Buzzsaw)

Enterprise PDM 4% (mainly in Manufacturing at 6%, 12% of Dassault users also use Enterprise PDM)

ProjectWise 4% (mainly in AEC at 7%, 38% of Bentley users also use rojectWise)

Also, in answering the question above 50% either did not use these tools or could not say which brand was used (41% selected “Do not use any” and 9% selected “Don't know/cannot say”). Looking more deeply, the “Do not use any” answer varies greatly by company size - 12% in large, 49% in medium, 58% in small.